Stopover at Tokyo with NWA
 

hi, I have a question for you guys.

I am taking NWA/Delta from New York to Taipei with a stopover in Tokyo, Japan. Is it possible for me to NOT continue on with my flight to Taipei and just enter the country for 3-4 days to travel? Of course, I would forfeit my Tokyo - Taipei leg ticket and would need to book an one-way ticket beforehand. Are there things I should watch out for? I mean, yes, I would def. be without checked-in luggages. Other than that, would immigration allow this type of traveling? Thoughts? Recommendations? Mucho gracias.

Welcome to FT.

Immigration requirements will depend on your nationality. For example, if you have a passport from the US, Canada or an EU member country, you should be eligible for a 90 day temporary visitor permit on arrival. (The same is true for some other countries - and you should check the situation before your trip). In this situation, Narita airport immigration officials may wish to see evidence that you have a ticket to leave Japan and sufficient funds to support yourself in Japan. Failure to provide such evidence could result in you being refused entry to the country.

If you break a roundtrip itinerary at NRT, then you may in fact forfeit all remaining legs of your itinerary. The airline may cancel any remaining reservations. If the only remaining leg of your journey is NRT-TPE, then you may find it worthwhile. But if there are several legs after NRT, you'd better check the terms and conditions of your ticket.

Da nuda.

Interesting. I have US passport so I should be able to enter w/o VISA. My wife she is on Taiwan passport, but supposedly Taiwanese passport holders are allowed in w/o visa for quick visit (30days or so, I am not certain about the number of days). Would we still need to get bank statements?


So does that mean I can't fly from Taiwan to NYC(returning flight and involves TPE -> NRT -> JFK), after abandoning the Tokyo-Taipei leg? If this is true, then this makes the whole stopover plan a moot. :(

Thanks again.

I've no idea how Tokyo immigration deals with Taiwanese passport holders.
For a US passport holder, it's very rare that the immigration folks actually ask to see anything other than your passport, but if they decide to pursue an aggressive line of questioning, it's probably best if you can show them a couple of credit cards and some tickets out of Japan. I've never heard of anyone bringing bank statements.

Well ... that will depend on the terms and conditions of the ticket you are using. So ...
Check the terms and conditions of your ticket.

I would suggest that you call NWA and ask to reschedule your flights. Even if the ticket is "not changeable," you can usually add a stopover by paying some fees, which ought to be less than the price of a one-way replacement ticket (let alone a new return flight to New York).

If you have an onward ticket from Tokyo you should be fine; they probably won't even ask to see it.

I think we are over-complicating things here. Let me try to simplify. If you buy a one way ticket JFK-NRT-TPE and don't check any bags, it is highly unlikely anyone from the airline will do anything if you get off the plane at NRT and don't use the last leg of the ticket.

You have a big problem if it's a round trip ticket, but not on a one way.

Whether you will have immigration problems at NRT is a separate problem, but if you dress nicely and act well, I'd doubt it. Bear in mind, however, that air tickets to the rest of Asia from Japan are very expensive. When you see the price of the NRT-TPE flight bought inside Japan you may be shocked!

thanks guys.

So, the biggest problem seems to be my JFK-TPE ROUNDTRIP ticket with stopover at NRT on both ways. I will check the terms of my ticket to see if I forfeit one of the NRT-TPE legs will complicate things.

BTW, i checked the prices on NRT-TPE one way tickets. The cheapest ones are about USD$276~300.

If it's a round trip ticket, the rest of the itinerary will be cancelled as soon as you miss a leg (unless you have a really good excuse for doing so). This is why you can't skip NRT-TPE and then fly back TPE-NRT-JFK.

Call NWA, tell them you want to stop over at NRT, and they will tell you how much it costs to do so. It will likely be less than $300.

Absolutely correct, I thought that you had stated that it was a one way ticket. On a round trip ticket, miss one leg and EVERY subsequent leg will be automatically cancelled. This is so basic that if there was a FlyerTalk gospel, it would be engraved in gold on the cover.

Can't comment on tickets, but looks like you have a problem with the roundtrip part.

As for immigration, Taiwan passport holders can enter 90 days as temporary visitors, so there shouldn't be any problems.

http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/02.html

On trips like this, best will be two round trip tickets, NYC-NRT + NRT-TPE; or an open jaw plus one way. Some partner airlines allow intra-asia one way mileage tickets. We just did an open jaw plus a one way free ticket in order to stop at two cities.

First of all, excuse my noobiness. :)

I called up NWA and flychina.com, NWA asked me to contact flychina.com. Flychina.com told me the ticket cannot be changed in any shape or form. Looks like I am out of luck on this one.

flychina.com is a booking engine -- and possibly a consolidator, although when I checked one fare, it just gave the same results as kayak.com, which gives published fares mostly.

Indeed, flychina probably won't or can't do anything for you, but that doesn't rule out going back to Northwest. Tell NW what you want and explain that flychina can't help, maybe they can take over the booking. When an agent tells you it's impossible, you then put into play the NEXT key element of the Flyertalk gospel: thank them politely, hang up, then call back and try again.

If you don't have elite status with NW/DL, you may have to try multiple times with long waits to get a human each time. Even then it might not work but usually, when what you are trying to do is give more money to the airline to get a stopover, you will eventually find someone who will work with you.

I am here to give an update -- I have called both NWA and Flychina.com again. NWA agent said she couldnt access the booking info at all since it was a ticket bought thru a consolidator. Flychina.com's agent said i can't make an extended stopover at japan because japan has a higher price point for landing. I offered to pay penalty to both agents and still got a big fat no. :(

That's a shame. Still... at least you found out now, rather than being denied a place on a flight. And you'll get some extra time in Taiwan, which is not bad at all.